NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Even though Hurricane Irene likely curbed retail sales toward the end of the month, shoppers buying consumables, back-to-school merchandise and upscale baubles look to still have delivered a solid August finish for U.S. store chains.

August sales at retail stores open at least a year, the main industry performance metric, are expected to rise 5%, above the 10-year-average monthly growth rate of 3% to 3.5%, said Ken Perkins, president of research firm Retail Metrics. See slide show on Irene’s trail of damage.

The S&P Retail Index rose Wednesday for a third straight day on the heels of the big weekend storm. While Irene was expected to hurt individual chains’ sales by anywhere from half a percentage point to two percentage points, in aggregate there’s only likely to have been a 0.1 to 0.2 percentage point of negative impact, Perkins said. See related story on retailers’ hopes for making up sales lost to Irene.

Irene “isn’t going to be a major impact,” Perkins said in an interview. “It’s a limited swath of retail where the impact should be limited. Department stores and specialty retailers are going to feel the biggest effect.”

Estimates on luxury retailer Saks Inc.
SKS, +0.00%
for instance, have come down by 1.7 percentage points since the end of last week because of weekend closure of the company’s New York flagship store.

For the month, consumers, enticed by such promotions as 50% off denim at Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
ANF, -1.91%
or penny deals at Staples Inc.
SPLS, -1.00%
opened their wallets, even after news of the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. credit rating and other global macroeconomic concerns led to wild market swings and declining consumer confidence and sentiment. Slide Show: The top 10 events that shaped a bear of an August.

Shoppers at either end of the price spectrum continued to pace demand. High-end shoppers bought designer handbags and shoes at full price, while discount shoppers bought mostly necessities and stocked up on batteries and flashlights to prepare for Irene.

Still, there were some positive signs of shoppers loosening the purse strings for nonessential things.

Other retailers that sell discretionary items also have pointed to a fairly resilient shopper. The Journeys shoe chain parent Genesco Inc.
GCO, -0.84%
jumped 8.3% on Wednesday after the company said back-to-school sales had been good through August despite Irene, signaling an encouraging start to the second half of the year.

“There’s a disconnect between what consumers are saying and what they are doing,” said Perkins. “Consumers still held up pretty well. September should hold up well [despite] some disruption. There are a lot of headwinds [facing any potential] spike in consumer spending. The No. 1 issue is the employment situation.”

Still, Irene’s impact remains a wild card as analysts said its arrival at the peak of the back-to-school shopping season may mean some of the lost sales won’t be recovered. At peak storm impact, the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
WMT, -0.73%
for instance, said it had shut about 300 locations because of power outages and flooding-related road closures.

“We are looking for depressed sales and inventory build-up, which will require additional promotions to clear,” said Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. analyst Richard Jaffe, adding that the storm may have a negative sales impact of one to as many as three percentage points in his specialty-retail coverage universe.

With “September getting off to a slow start, we don’t see that business as pent-up or recovered,” Jaffe said on a conference call. Even if sales were to be recovered, he said that would likely come at the price of deep discounting.

Analysts also said they are gauging the impact of the market volatility on the psyches of upscale shoppers heading into the fall season.

They also are waiting for reads into how consumers are responding to retailers’ higher selling prices as a result of rising cotton prices and other cost inflation.

Target has said the average unit retail price for apparel and home goods is expected to rise by a percentage in the double digits for August and September, compared with low- to mid-single-digit rates for apparel in the first half. Macy’s Inc.
M, -1.60%
forecast average unit retail prices up 5% to 7%. Teen retailer Buckle Inc.
BKE, -0.47%
said it raised its men’s-clothing prices by about 8% in July, five percentage points higher than its women’s-clothing rise. See story on retailers’ waging back-to-school price war.

Reuters

Costco and other discount chains are forecast to have put in the best August performance.

“We are focused on August to provide early reads on consumer reactions and pricing elasticity,” said Barclays Capital analyst Robert Drbul.

For the month, the discount category looks to have been the strongest performer, with a 7.3% increase expected, according to Retail Metrics. Costco Wholesale Corp.
COST, +0.35%
is expected to post a 9.9% increase. Analysts were expecting a 3.4% increase for Target. Wal-Mart doesn’t report monthly sales.

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